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Derek as in Derek Khoo? working in S.T? if so, your buddy kelvin here.. if not, then sorry.. wrong person.. paiseh..
Let us work together to preserve the world for our children to inherit by being responsible to our surroundings. Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints, bubbles and memories.
Hey there Derek.
I do not keep LouHans, as they are not available in my country, BUT..i am sure that the best way to sex them would be the extension of the dorsal and anal fins...
Mez
Currently keeping many wild betta species and other anabantoids.
This can be a complex topic, as Luohans are hybrids of many different combinations of central amercan cichlids....
and you should know the strains keep changing..
I don't "follow" the "development" of Luohan strains, but i will try my best.
and although there are general things to look out for when sexing central amercians, some traits such as coloration and finnage cannot be used anymore...as they are often species-specific...
with Luohans, we are not even sure of what species had went into the soup, not to mention the very true possibility of them not displaying parent traits all the time.
GENERALLY,
(1) Males have larger head in proportion to body .
(2) Face of males should be more contoured, while females have smaller head in proportion to body...and the face somehow looks smoother and "cuter"
(3) for fish 6" up, ripe females have much more rounded bodies than males...But the big problem here is that many "SHort-body" strains of luohans had been developed...thus not only females are rounded.
(4) males should display distinct breeding tubes even out of breeding time....the tube is near the anus and is abt 2mm long and thin.It should protrude well. Females have fatter tubes that are not so obvious.
(5) Finnage : sorry i dont really know the LH breeds but from what i see, the strains change too fast. Not reliable at all. Well, imagine a breed less than 6mths old, how can anything be fixed? THose pure strain fish we have are thousands..and for some, millions of years old.
(6) Nuchal hump..well, same story again...cannot use the criteria for pure strains.
(7) males in general have more longish and slimmer bodies than females proportionately.
( colour : BY RIGHT, most cichlid males have brighter colour but like i said, i dunno if this still holds for Luohans.
Like i said, they are hybrids that breed true. The strains change so fast it is hard to follow them all the time. WHat i can tell you is only the general case that should still hold for all central americans, regardless they are hyrbids or not.
From my experience of having kept 20 LHs some time or other,
Most of the ways of telling a male from a female cichlid do not work for LHs. I guess this is because they have been so hybridized that the usual traits are all mixed up.
I've seen females with huchal hunmps, longer finnages than males, etc. I just sold off 1 female who is more colorful than a lot of male LHs out there.
The usual way is to look at the ovipositor, but I myself do not really know how to differentiate, until they start laying eggs.
To select males, I never select youngs with black markings on the dorsals. They are likely to me females. Although certain strains have black markings on their dorsal fins, I don't think I've seen any females without a black marking on their dorsal.
Good luck selecting!
another thing that should be normal to cichlids is that if they grow up together in the same batch, males are the fastest growest.
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